In 1938, at Munich time, there had been no employment within the village of Killyleagh in Northern Ireland for twelve years. , But in that yr Czech brothers known as Erik and Gerhard Utitz started inside the abandoned flax mill, a branch of the tannery which have been their own family business in Prague for the reason that 1795; exports from Prague had stopped, and this becomes an attempt to retain their change with Great Britain. An abandoned flax mill become the best sign that the inhabitants had ever lived in something, however absolute poverty.
When Hitler marched into Prague, the Utitz brothers slipped out, abandoning lock, stock, and barrel, however taking with them simply one professional tanner. The little branch within the transformed flax mill has become the main tannery for Uta suède. The villagers now not handiest had to learn a wholly new kind of paintings; they needed to study to work at all: twelve years of total unemployment had bred general melancholy. To wish, at that point, to have 60 professional people within years appeared simply a bit of Utitz optimism; yet now, four hundred men and women work at the tannery, coming in through bus from a ten-mile radius around Killyleagh.
And out from Killyleagh goes suède to all the main makers of footwear at the Rome-Paris-London fashion axis. For suède is pervading all the excessive fashion locations. This is partially due to the trend for shoes to fit the clothes they’re worn; suède can be produced within the greatest subtleties of shade. Again, it’s miles in part because of the femininity of today’s models; suède, while it’s far made from kid leather-based, is a tender, nearly sensual fabric; bendy, supple, lending itself to the most problematic designs for the maximum stylish footwear. And all over again, the pervasion of suède is in a few parts due to the chrome-tanning process at Killyleagh, which produces suède containing no resin and without a plastic surface (the foot can, so to talk, breathe); and which, inside the new Uta-proof version, is water-repellent – after wearing within the wet it only must be sponged or brushed with a completely gentle brush.
Pastel, peach-bloom, and mushroom purple suèdes made the fascinating footwear for this maximum uncharming summer. Autumn shades are riper, richer: berry purple, leaf browns, ripe plums, lush black. Shoes themselves have taken on a medieval flip. There is a touch of medieval Venice in the lengthy, slim escarpin from the Dior-Delman series in Paris; of medieval England within the metropolis bootee, halfway between a shoe and a boot, designed by Charles Creed to go along with his autumn collection.
It is a relatively current development for the London couturiers to collaborate with shoe producers. For his autumn series, Michael designed suède shoes, made by way of Norvic, with what he called a greyhound appearance – the last phrase and today’s line in tapering slenderness… Ft added to an exceptional factor, heels to a narrow spike. Mattli showed suède footwear he had designed for Saxone in a new bluish-beige Uta color; Hardy Amies, John Cavanagh, Norman Hartnell, and Digby Morton all designed shoes finished using Rayne, one of the new Associate Members of the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers.
Mr. Edward Rayne stated himself inquisitive about the completely clean outlook given to shoe designing via these 4 dressmakers. They are known as the Rayne Couture C0llection and are being produced in what’s known as a “constrained edition.” the shoes are now within the stores, and the clients will want to be involved too, for they fee twelve guineas a couple. But for individuals who themselves have restricted purchasing strength, the Miss Rayne Collection at 5 guineas will commend itself most warmly.
Miss Rayne, a mythical charmer, isn’t always a situation to unreasonable flights of foolishness. Her shoes are quiet and youthful yet contrive to be practical in addition to seductive. There are low-cut, directly-vamped pumps in a bright-colored glacé child, with baby Louis heels, and there are metropolis strolling shoes of gentle cork-grained leather, with a brogue tongue wrappings over the vamp. And there may be a mainly fascinating model of the conventional black suède court shoe – or pump, as it is now called. We listen a brilliant deal approximately “the little black get dressed” as an important aspect of every stylish female’s cloth wardrobe; however, it’s miles the pair of nicely-bred, slim-heeled black pumps that guarantees that the muse of a nicely-dressed look is properly and in reality laid.
